Many Thanks!

Rejoice, Christ is Risen! Alleluia, Alleluia.

We have made it through Lent, Holy Week, as well as the wonderful Octave of Easter, concluding with Divine Mercy Sunday. We now are continuing our Easter journey with this entire 50 days of the Easter season. The weeks leading up to and including Easter are very busy around the parish, and they take a lot of work to get things ready and looking right. I wanted to take the time to thank the many volunteers who helped to do the different color changes in the church going from violet, to red, back to violet, to white, back to red, and finally to white for our Easter season. There was also a significant amount of time moving plants and placing flowers. We had to set up chairs and the altar area for the second Mass in the gym as well. These are only the visible things that we see as we have celebrated Holy Week and Easter. There were numerous choir practices, practicing for servers and clergy, as well as for the RCIA people, as well as other planning for the liturgies. This all takes people to step up and do it. I wanted to thank everyone who helped, I know if I start naming names, I will forget some and I do not want to do that, but I wanted everyone to know just how much work goes into this season and I wanted to wholeheartedly thank all of the people who helped. It is easy to thank myself or Fr Ryan for the beautiful liturgies, but without the many, many hours that were put in by a significant number of other people, it would not happen. With that being said, we can always use people to help out.

Just like in most places, the same few people are doing most of the events or ministries. Almost every week we have multiple open spots on our ministry schedule for Extra Ordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, or lectors, or hospitality ministers, etc. It is not often seen because we usually are grabbing people as they walk in and asking them last minute. It takes 11-12 people helping at each of the Masses that we have, and sometimes we only have 5-6 available and we have to find the others. Something that would be pretty easy to do as a family is to do hospitality ministry, which involves greeting people, handing out music books, and passing the collection baskets, the kids usually love to help with this. I know that we all have very busy lives and we are not always sure which Mass we are going to attend, or other event we are going to be at, but as a parish, we really need the help in these things. Here at St. Luke’s, we have around 1,500 registered adults and if even half of us volunteer an hour a month, we would be fine.

Again, I wanted to thank the staff and volunteers that help to serve in the liturgies, as well as all of the other things that happen around here. Thank you all so much!

God bless,
Fr. Ken